


where is thy sting

by maricolous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Minor Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22930561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maricolous/pseuds/maricolous
Summary: It’s been two weeks since their last date when Tim accidentally drunk dials Jon, and three days since they texted.(Four years after Danny's death, it's not any easier.)
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 144





	where is thy sting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [straddling_the_atmosphere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/gifts).



> a birthday present for cristina!! happy birthday, here is some sadness!
> 
> this takes place in a wider, largely more cheerful au, where tim is an editor and jon is an academic and there are NO eldritch monsters and they fall in love and not quite out of love and back into it again, but i chose a moment during that first round of love to highlight.
> 
> the title is from maya angelou's 'when i think of death'.

It’s been two weeks since their last date when Tim accidentally drunk dials Jon, and three days since they texted. Tim hasn’t been keeping a count, or anything, except that he has, because he actually really likes Jon. They’ve been seeing each other exclusively for three months whenever they can squeeze into each other’s schedule. Tim doesn’t think Tinder is the place to look for your soulmate, but he thinks he might have found his there.

Calling Jon is still a mistake, because Tim is very drunk and very melancholy.

Somewhere between leaving Martin’s well-meaning sad faces on read and dropping the phone next to his head, he manages to hit the call button on his chat with Jon.

When the first soft, tentative “Tim?” sounds next to his ear, he thinks: this is it. This is the year Danny haunts him. The thought remains for the second and third repetitions, until his brain clears enough to recognise the tinny sound of it and he turns his head just enough to see a picture of Jon on his screen.

“Tim? Hello?” Jon asks, voice thick with sleep.

“Fuck,” Tim groans, rolling over to press his ear to the phone. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to call you.”

“It’s okay, I was just napping,” Jon says. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Tim says. He feels bile in his throat and wonders if it’s the alcohol or his nerves. “Go back to sleep.”

“Are you drunk?” Jon asks. There’s none of the amusement that Tim’s heard before, from people who called without knowing better. “I can come over if you want.”

Tim doesn’t want him to come over. If their mutual inability to leave their offices on time isn’t enough to make them call it quits, the dead brother thing might be. It certainly has in the past, with people Tim had been dating for much longer.

“I’m not good company,” he says.

He thinks Jon may have fallen asleep, it takes so long for him to respond. But then Jon makes one of his adorable grumpy sounds, the ones that usually make Tim melt. (Not today, though. There’s no room for levity today.)

“I’m coming over. Your key is still in a completely unsafe place, yes?”

Tim almost laughs. Almost. “Under the mat. Yeah. Look, you don’t need to  —”

“See you soon.”

The phone beeps and Tim rolls off it again. The conversation has broken him out of his drunken melancholy just enough to realise how uncomfortable he is on the floor, but he doesn’t try to move. The weight of the world is sitting on his chest, along with Danny’s ghost, and how dare he try to dislodge it? He hadn’t even had the decency to go to the grave this year, or leave the house at all.

He levers himself up just enough to drain the last of his glass, then lies down again. His favourite photo of Danny, taken the summer before he died, stares him down from the wall. His laughing face seems twisted somehow, hideous and cruel, when the moment had actually been one of the best in their lives. Nothing will ever top it, for Danny, and Tim won’t let anything top it for him either. He can't.

Their parents — his parents — suggest therapy every year. Tim wasn’t responsible, had nothing to do with his brother’s death, needed to let go of the grief, needed to live his life, it’s what Danny would have wanted, and he’s angry because they’re not wrong. He’s angry because they already let go of the dark moods that still take him like clockwork every year.

They’re not wrong. And yet, how dare they.

He’s lost in his staring match with the photo of Danny when his front door clicks open, and he thinks again, Danny. Danny here to haunt him.

Jon pokes his head in from the entry hall. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Sure, no rush.” Tim realises how tense he’d gone only when he relaxes against the carpet. Not Danny. No haunting. “You really don’t have to be here.”

Jon’s hair is still sleep-mussed when he enters the room, bearing a frozen pizza. He steps over Tim into the kitchenette and fusses with the oven for a moment, shoving the pizza in without preheating. Given how good Jon is at cooking, it’s almost funny. Almost. “Can you set a timer for fifteen minutes?”

Tim sighs and does it, and settles in for the worst breakup talk he can imagine.

Instead, Jon joins him on the floor, not quite touching him. He doesn’t say anything and Tim itches to fill the silence in his stead, but the only thing that comes to mind is explaining himself and he refuses to do that. He keeps his silence. Somehow it feels less crushing with Jon next to him.

“After pizza,” Jon says, when Tim’s phone chimes the fifteen minute mark. “We don’t have to have a big discussion. I just want to know where your head is.”

Tim sighs, because it’s all he can do, and drags himself upright.

The pizza is comically small in comparison to the box it came in, and it’s not really enough for two, but Jon takes a third and pushes the rest to Tim. For the cheapest thing the grocery has to offer after loose fresh produce, it’s the best thing Tim’s tasted all day. It’s the only thing he’s tasted.

Jon shows Tim videos of the Admiral while they eat, highlighting an attempt Georgie made to take the Admiral out for a walk on a harness.

Tim actually cracks a smile, but his face crumples seconds after, and he _cries_. He cries like he hasn’t since the funeral four years ago, big gasping sobs and tears and snot. The works. He feels the warmth of Jon against his side, bony arms sliding around him, and lets himself cry until his eyes are red and sore.

“Water?” Jon asks.

Tim sniffs, loud and unattractive, and nods. “Yeah. Please.”

Jon returns with a pint glass of water and a damp tea towel, patting at Tim’s face with the towel once the glass is drained. “Better?”

“No,” Tim says haltingly. “But not worse.”

Jon nods and sits on the floor with him again. The pizza plate will need to be cleaned, and the glass and the towel and the empty bottles littering the nearby table, but Jon’s knee touches his and he can’t seem to think of anything else.

Jon’s knee against his, and Danny, gone.

“My brother died four years ago,” Tim says hoarsely, pressing the towel over his eyes again. The cool damp of it feels good, and for once, it doesn’t feel wrong to allow that kind of comfort. “I know I should have…moved on to remembering him happily, or whatever the fuck, but I can’t. I can’t yet.”

“Okay,” Jon says. “That’s okay.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not. My parents keep reminding me of that.”

He feels Jon shrug, their sleeves brushing. “Well, I think it takes time. It’s different for everyone. But…”

Tim presses the towel harder against his eyes. Here it is.

“Next time, call me on purpose?” Jon asks, his fingers feather-light on Tim’s arm. “I won’t try to cheer you up, I promise. But maybe it’ll be good just to have someone here? I’ll even drink with you, if you want.”

Tim lowers the towel. “What?”

Jon nudges his glasses up his nose nervously. “I’ll drink with you next year? Maybe not this volume, though.”

Tim looks up at the photo of Danny, and Danny beams back, bright and carefree and not at all sinister. The world still sits on his chest, on his head, trying to push him down, but Danny isn’t helping it anymore.

“Bring a better pizza next time, and I might even forego the alcohol completely,” Tim says, not quite joking.

Jon tips his head, considers Tim. “Deal. Do you want to watch Dinner Date with me now?”

Part of Tim wants to usher Jon out of his flat, shut the door and fall asleep on the floor. He doesn’t let that part win this time, this year.

“Sure,” Tim says. “We can bet lunch on who guesses the most winners.”

“Hm. I’ll clean this up, if you get the television on,” Jon says.

Tim drags himself up onto the couch and finds the remote. When Jon returns and kisses his cheek before cuddling up to pass the rest of the evening with rubbish programming, he can imagine Danny winking at him. The ache lets up a little more.


End file.
